You Call That What Now?

There’s something deeply satisfying about the absurdity of tech buzzwords. It’s just like a slow-motion train wreck where you can see the accident coming but can’t look away either.

The Background

Take a moment to appreciate how many terms in our industry are proudly, blatantly, aggressively misleading while people hold knowledge of them as badges of honor (and a method of linguistic gatekeeping).

Whole ecosystems of tools exist under names that do the exact opposite of what they suggest. It’s almost as if naming conventions in tech are run by the people who love to gaslight others with less technical skill than they have.

We’re told something is serverless. But the reality is, there are definitely servers involved. In fact, if you use it wrong, you’ll really get to know those servers because you’ll receive an eye-watering AWS bill. The only thing that’s “less” is your visibility and your control.

How about the glorious revolution of no-code platforms? The future, where people who can’t code can make complex systems. Except… most of the time, they involve workflows so convoluted, they make your average React app look like Tic-Tac-Toe. And then you hit a wall and need to inject a “custom code snippet.” Welcome back, cowboy.

These terms aren’t just annoying. They’re marketing sleight of hand. They give management the illusion of simplicity, as if building scalable software was just one magical buzzword away from being frictionless. It’s not.

The Most Difficult Problem in Engineering

The problem is, naming things well is hard. But naming them misleadingly? That seems to be effortless.

We shouldn’t have to spend half our onboarding time explaining, “Okay, so when we say ‘serverless’ what we mean is…” or “No-code just means low-code if you squint and sacrifice your sanity.”

And here’s the kicker: we’ve all bought into it. We use these terms. We write them in job descriptions. We proudly list them on resumes. “I architected a serverless solution using a no-code platform.” Translation: “I worked with tools named by liars.”

Of course, the alternative is we name things accurately. But imagine trying to sell “MostlyInvisibleServerThatStillCostsMoney-as-a-Service” to your CTO. Or pitching your startup as a “LowCodeUntilYouNeedToActuallyDoSomething Platform.” Not quite the same ring.

Conclusion

Maybe someday we’ll get better. Or maybe we’ll just keep giving fancy names to old ideas, wrapping complexity in simplicity until no one remembers what anything actually does.

But until then, remember. Just because something says it doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean that is true. When you get the on-call ping at 2AM remember that warning.